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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759911">don't fly away from me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack'>KDblack</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dragon Ball Collection [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Ball</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Goten's there too but he's just here to be cute, Son Goku's C+ Parenting, and the awkward rebuilding thereof, that feel when your dad is an eternal teenager but you age like a normal person</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:23:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing pains.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Son Gohan &amp; Son Goku</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dragon Ball Collection [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696063</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>don't fly away from me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gohan's never really considered himself an adult, but he hasn't really considered himself a child either. To him, they aren't separate things. A child can be dragged into the wasteland and forced to fight for his life; an adult can drop everything to go live in the wilderness and still be forced into battle. The only real difference is height and a pretense of agency. It takes him a long, long time to realize other people don't feel the same.</p><p>Bulma's the one who kicks things off. It's usually her. She has a way with words, by which Gohan means that she could set off an intergalactic war with a single well-placed sentence, so it's no wonder she could bring his world crashing down the same way.</p><p>It's not even given the appropriate gravitas. She drops it casually in the middle of his usual check-up.</p><p>“Nice job holding still for so long, Goku's still a little kid about needles.”</p><p>Polite laughter catches in Gohan's throat. “He – he is?”</p><p>“Yup,” she says absently, waving some kind of instrument over Gohan's cropped hair. The breeze stings. He bears with it. “Something something 'but it hurts!' Jeez, he can take a punch, but try and make him do something for his health and he's absolutely useless. Did you know he wasn't even vaccinated when I met him? Muten Roshi and I teamed up to make sure that nonsense didn't last.” </p><p>She keeps talking, but Gohan's stopped listening. All he can hear is five words on loop: Goku's still a little kid.</p><p>“It's hyperbole,” he says. “Right? He's not – he's not actually still a child.”</p><p>Bulma breaks off whatever she was saying to scowl. “Of course it's hyperbole. Haven't you taken a developmental psychology course?”</p><p>Gohan shakes his head.</p><p>“Brain injury certification?”</p><p>“No, Bulma.”</p><p>“Xeno-neuroscience?”</p><p>“I think you made that field of study up.”</p><p>“Damn right I did!” Bulma cackles. “It's not a real thing until I publish my next round of papers. But no, Gohan, your father is a healthy adult Saiyan and the entire concept of 'mental age' is ableist bull.”</p><p>Gohan breathes out slowly and smiles. “Good. That's – good.”</p><p>He's trying for relieved. He must hit it, because Bulma grins back and begins rambling about a new subject – she thinks she has an idea why none of their tails have grown back and wants stem cell samples to test it. There's no way this has anything to do with Gohan's check-up, but he's not going to interrupt her again. Not when his brain is still latched on to a very uncomfortable topic.</p><p>“About how old would you say he is?” Gohan asks as he's leaving. “Like, physically.”</p><p>Bulma makes a face, the lines around her eyes crinkling. It makes her look warm. “Always the hard questions. I dunno, kid. He's put on more muscle over the years, but I'd say he still looks the same now as he did at eighteen. Then you factor in all the years he's spent dead-” Her voice doesn't waver. Gohan's not surprised. Bulma's always been the strongest of them. “-and you have to throw the whole equation out because time in the other world? Does not make sense. If I really had to put a number on it, I'd say he's probably about twenty or so. And Vegeta's basically twenty-six. Saiyan aging is unfair.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Gohan says numbly. “Take care of yourself, Bulma.”</p><p>“Sure thing, kiddo – Trunks!” she whirls away with all the grace of a queen. “I can hear you, you little brat! Get down from there with your sister before I break out the lasers!”</p><p>At that point, Gohan figures it's best to just leave quietly. If only he could escape his thoughts so easily.</p><p>It isn't like this is the first time he's realized how young his father looks. Son Goku came back from the dead with the same broad shoulders, chiseled jawline, and bright eyes Gohan remembers from his childhood. No, his father is exactly the same. That's the problem.</p><p>He flies home in a cloud of contemplation. On some level, time stopped for Gohan at the end of the Cell Games. Part of him will always be ten years old, burning with a rage that almost destroyed him, screaming his wrath to the heavens because if he's angry at least he won't have to grieve. That fragment of childish pain makes the rest of him feel older. He's spent the last seven years trying to round off the jagged edges and ensure he's safe to be around. He likes to think he's succeeded. But that means that when his father came back, it was easy to slip into old habits, even as a twenty-something adult.</p><p>Is he... older than his father? His face has more lines. His eyes droop further. He suspects his bones ache more, creak more, and that can't just be due to lack of training, can it? This hybrid body has always made its own decisions without consulting Gohan first. Would it really be a surprise to learn that it's left his ageless father behind?</p><p>Son Goku's ki signature is difficult to describe. Vast, but narrow. Peaceful, but hungry. Empty, but endless. An existence measured in impossibilities and contrasts, that's him. It slides over Gohan like ripples, an idle ping to check his location and if he's okay. Sometimes, Gohan pings back, and is greeted by a mix of sadness and bright, joyful surprise. It's hard to do, though, especially across large distances. Distance has never mattered to Son Goku, but for better or worse, Gohan isn't his father. Sending out so much energy for a glorified text message is... tiring. The kind of thing he'd do in a life-or-death situation. Otherwise, he gratefully relies on modern technology to pick up the slack.</p><p>Things like this are why Gohan could never quite bring himself to believe that he could actually surpass his father. But maybe he's been looking in the wrong places. As he zeroes in on his father's location, Gohan closes his eyes and sends out that questioning pulse unprompted.</p><p><i>Gohan?</i> his father asks immediately, words projected straight into his mind. <i>Somethin' up?</i></p><p><i>No,</i> Gohan thinks back. <i>I just... wanted to make sure things were okay.</i></p><p>The students Gohan works with would take offence to a statement like that. They'd read it as him accusing them of something. Bulma would laugh in his face. Even his mom would give him a look and scold him for not trusting her. With Son Goku, he just gets the telepathic echo of a cheerful hum. <i>It's fine. Ah, Goten's here. Did you wanna talk to him?</i></p><p>
  <i>Yeah. I think I would.</i>
</p><p>Gohan touches down somewhere in the backyard, or what he thinks of as his backyard, which is probably just wilderness. The two of them are out training, father and son, and Gohan's heart goes tight and hot in his chest when he sees them. Goten is so small. So fiery. Gohan's certain he was never as active at that age, but his father doesn't have any trouble dealing with a tiny super-strong cruise missile. Son Goku catches all Goten's punches and cheers him on when he lands a good hit. </p><p>They have the same grin.</p><p>His father looks up and waves. “Yo, Gohan!”</p><p>“Hi,” Gohan manages. “I'm back.”</p><p>Goten shoots at him like a rocket and begins bouncing everywhere. “You're here! You missed on a ton of stuff. We went fishing and caught a really big one! What did Aunt Bulma want, anyway?”</p><p>“Just a check-up. She said I've probably stopped growing, at least.” Thank goodness. </p><p>“Ah, really?” Gohan has about three seconds of warning before his father is up in his face, holding a hand over their heads. “Hey, you're taller than me!”</p><p>“What?” Goten exclaims. He sounds very far away.</p><p>Son Goku pulls his hand forward, showing about two inches of height difference. It's tiny. Practically non-existent. Why does it seem wider than the world? Gohan looks down at his father and wonders when this happened. </p><p>How could he have let this slip by unnoticed? What should he do? What should he say?</p><p>“You're getting so big,” Son Goku says. “Just look at you!” He's still smiling. Like the growing chasm between them doesn't matter at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Gohan is canonically taller than Goku as an adult and I can't decide if that's the best or most painful thing.</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28550274">[Podfic] don't fly away from me</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics">GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)</a>
    </li>
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